


Say it from the Heart

by urbaninja



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Voice Acting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 16:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12535680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urbaninja/pseuds/urbaninja
Summary: Namine is just your average girl with a crush on up and coming idol, Sora. But when a surprise trip to a recording studio results in her accidentally learning a secret that could jeopardize his career, Namine finds herself facing a situation far larger than she ever could have thought.





	Say it from the Heart

His name was Sora and he was an idol.

He was an up and coming voice actor, and well on his way to having a solid music career as well. He’d done a few photo shoots and there were rumors he’d be launching his own fashion line soon. He had good looks, a killer smile, and girls and guys flocking to him at every angle. 

Also he was easily described as being the nicest person ever. The kind of guy that, no matter how much success he seemed to be gifted with, you just couldn’t bring yourself to hate him, because he really was that genuinely nice. The jerk.

Did I mention that he was still in high school? 

Yes, Sora just happened to be one of those people who had it all and then some.

And Namine had a crush on him.

Namine, however, was largely the antithesis of Sora. Where he was bright and energetic, she was more quiet and tended to hang back. She admired Sora for his energy and wished she could be more like him. Then maybe she would be noticed. Her crush could very easily be described as the crush of a typical shojo manga heroine. 

However, life was not doing her the favor of imitating art and there were very few opportunities to get Sora to notice her through his legions of fangirls and guys. And so she crushed from a distance. 

It wasn’t easy. 

Axel was no help.

“I don’t see what the big deal is? So he does some voices and wears some clothes. I can do that to, if I wanted to do. I’d just rather play video games.”

“He voices characters in the video games you play! He’s just, he’s really cool, okay?” 

“Then why don’t you talk to him?”

“I did! Yesterday!”

“Namine, yesterday he passed you back your test and you said thank you. That hardly counts as a conversation.”

Namine sighed, and continued to eat her lunch, admitting defeat. She longed to share a proper conversation with him. Get to know him personally even if she already knew a number of personal details about through various interviews she’d read and watched. But it was tough with that wall of fans that always seemed to surround him, and she never seemed to catch him alone. It was frustrating, to say the least.

That, however, was about to change. In ways Namine could not being to expect.

**

It was a typical day at school. Axel and Namine were eating lunch in the art room. Axel was playing a mobile game on his phone, or texting, Namine couldn’t tell. Instead she was going on about the latest Sora news. Just yesterday it had been announced that he would be voicing the lead character in the next Legends of Fantasy game, Legends of Fantasy XI: Awakening Prologue, which had been highly anticipated for a number of years. Never mind that the anime he was currently working on, Graceful Driver X, was heading into a climax and there were rumors of which anime he was going to be a part of next, ranging from the latest shonen series to flood the market to an obscure set of OVAs with a limited release period. 

Whatever it was going to be, Namine would watch it, as she had with all of Sora’s other works. There was something about the roles he played that drew her to them. He was often the underdog, the hero who never gave up despite the odds. It gave her the belief that maybe she could be that person, had tried to be that person. She yearned to thank him for the optimism he had given her.

And she had tried. But with the way his legion of fans surrounded him, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. She would try to start a conversation in the halls, only to be edged out by someone else bolder than she was, or Sora would have to run and take a call. If she left him a note in his locker, it would be mistaken for a love letter and discarded in favor of the next attempt. And she wasn’t even sure if he got his fan mail of it was just handled by his agency.

“Did you want to see him work?” 

Namine didn’t hear the question at first. She had been too busy rambling on about how far Sora had come, from the bit parts he’d played to his first big break as the shonen hero, Yutaro in Game Master Yutaro. A series she still followed, even if it was in it’s fourth iteration and largely marketed towards kids for merchandising purposes, and Sora technically wasn’t even a part of now, aside from the odd cameo. That had been the role that had drawn her to Sora. She’d always liked the character of Yutaro, and had only by chance caught an interview with the then much younger Sora. A lot of what he had said in that interview had struck her, and she had started following him from there. His positive attitude was hard to ignore.

“Namine, I said did you want to see him work?” 

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Axel shrugged.

“Some buddies of mine work for the production company that makes that anime he’s in, Graceful whatever, working with the audio. If you want, we can stop by the studio for a “tour” and just happen to time it up with when Sora’s there.”

Namine was glad she wasn’t holding anything at the moment, as it surely would have ended up on the floor.

“You’re serious?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

The pair shared a look and Axel conceded.

“Okay, fine. But I do mean this. And hey!”

Namine had practically leapt from her chair to uncharacteristically give Axel a hug. It wasn’t even close to his birthday or Christmas and so all he could do was flail around awkwardly. 

“Axel you’re the best!” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Now let go before someone sees. I got a reputation to uphold.”

**

Namine could hardly focus for the rest of the day. Instead, she found herself caught up in fantasies of what this tour would be like, and what would happen when she met Sora. Not that it would be their first meeting, Sora being in her class at school and all but this meeting would have to count. She wanted to make a good impression so that Sora would at least remember her at school. Enough so that she wouldn’t join the legion of fans who fawned over him, and was able to stand out as her own person.

Most of her walk home from school was spent imagining conversations and practicing things over and over in her head. She could feel the nerves growing but had to shove them away. This was just going to be a chance meeting while she was touring the studio, courtesy of Axel’s friends. Nothing special. Except for the part where it was. There was just so much that she wanted to say to him, about how he had inspired her and gave her the confidence when, more often than not, she had none. 

She ate dinner quickly and then Axel picked her up on his scooter. The studio was actually a lot closer than she thought it would be. On the outside it was a rather non-descript building in a strip mall about twenty minutes away. The inside was nothing special to behold as well, as she looked around the lobby while Axel dealt with the bored looking receptionist. 

That changed when a door opened suddenly and Axel was sufficiently glomped, for lack of a better term, by a young man in a Hawaiian t-shirt and a blond mullet.

“Axel, you made it! Finally!”

“Yeah, hi Demyx,” Axel replied, shoving the other man off but managing a smile all the same. “Good to see you to. Namine, this is Demyx. Demyx, Namine. He was a couple years ahead of us in school. She’s in my class.” 

“Nice to meet you, Namine. Come to see the masters at work, huh? Well, come on! I’ll show you were the magic happens. But you’ll have to be quiet because we are working alright. And you’ll have to sign some NDAs, but we can worry about that later.”

Namine was a bit stunned by how quickly things went, especially as Axel ushered her down the hall behind Demyx, who was chatting amiably and pointing things out at a speed that was taking Namine a little time to catch up with. 

Eventually they came to a recording studio and it was like Demyx’s demeanor changed. Where the friendly, chatty man had once been was now a serious director, calling people to order. The change was startling. 

“Okay, if our guests would just go over there, please. Thank you. We’re going to start recording Shiron’s big speech from “Exial, we were friends once. Rox, you ready in there?” 

Namine didn’t know who Rox was, but she recognized Shiron and Exial from Graceful Driver X, and was suddenly aware of several things. First, that she was about to get exclusive spoilers for Graceful Driver X. Second, that as she glanced to the side, she realized that she was, in fact, standing beside Sora. And third, that he was definitely not in the recording booth. Sora caught her eye and looked suitably embarrassed. Namine was about to say something when Sora put a finger to his lips and then pointed at the recording booth.

Inside the booth was a young man about her age. He was about Sora’s height and had spiky blond hair compared to Sora’s brown. His eyes were the same shade of blue. There was a pause in the recording booth, and then the boy in the booth took a breath and began.

“Exial, we were friends once.” 

Namine was captivated, especially as the speech began to build. It was like she could feel the emotion growing with each sentence, Shiron’s grief, anger, desperation and above all, hope hitting her. It was like she could see what the episode would look like. But then it kicked in that she was not listening to Sora. That Sora was not providing the voice of Shiron like she had previously assumed.

“I will win! And I will bring you home!” the boy in the booth concluded with a triumphant shout. There was silence in the booth until Demyx finally spoke.

“Roxas, that was great! Seriously I think we nailed it. Think we could go back and try the build up again?”

Namine blinked, looking between the booth and Sora. Sora smiled, again embarrassed and lead them out of the room. Axel looked just as curious. 

“So, what did you guys think? He’s pretty good, isn’t he?”

There was a long silence as Namine tried to work out what to say. What to ask. She was so confused.

“Sora, who was that?” Namine asked. “How come you weren’t in the booth?”

“Well, you see, the truth is, that’s my twin brother, Roxas. He’s actually the voice actor in the family. Not me.”

**

When Namine woke up, she was on one of the couches out in the hall. Axel was looking down at her.

“Hey, you okay? I think you passed out a bit.” 

“I usually have that effect on people,” said Sora, with a laugh. Namine was confused. She sat up gingerly, with Axel’s help, and stared at Sora blankly, trying her best to keep all her dreams and inspirations intact where they were rapidly starting to crack and shatter. This couldn’t be happening. 

“What happened?”

“Well, like I said. You passed out, shortly after you learned that Sora’s not quite the idol we all thought. I assume you have some sort of explanation for all this.” 

“Yeah, I do. It’s a bit of a long story, but basically, I’m the front man for Roxas. He does all the voices and stuff, and well, I take the credit. Except for the clothes and the idol bit. That’s all me. Mostly. He sings some of the songs.”

Namine could hardly believe what she was hearing. She felt oddly betrayed.

“But isn’t that…lying?”

“Kind of? But it’s not like I’m taking advantage or anything. We agreed to this when it all started. Roxas…doesn’t like being in the limelight all that much.”

“Why?”

Sora looked at the floor awkwardly, biting his lip as he considered something.

“He just doesn’t, that’s all. He’s kind of shy and has never been good with being the center of attention.”

“So…so has this been the case since the beginning?”

“The Beginning?”

“Since Game Master Yutaro.”

“Since Yutaro, huh? Yeah pretty much.”

Namine could feel the shattering in her heart.

“So, even if you weren’t providing the voice…what about the interviews?”

“Yup, that’s me. I told you, that’s my part of the job.”

“But you were lying?”

“What? No I wasn’t. I’m not just covering up for Roxas, we’re sharing the job. Even if he provides the voices, I still have to do my part. I’ve never been anything but completely sincere in those interviews!”

It still felt wrong. And Namine wasn’t sure how to voice that. Something about the arrangement just felt off. Even if the words he said were true, they weren’t coming from the voice she thought they were. An awkward silence fell on the group.

Namine’s attention was focused on the ground as she tried to reign in her thoughts. Axel had just been taking things in silently. Even Sora, normally seemingly unperturbed, seemed uncomfortable. They stayed that way until a door opened and Roxas walked out. 

He worse casual clothes and had a tired expression. He didn’t look a lot like Sora, aside from his eyes, but his whole demeanor was different. Where Sora was bright and energetic and greeted the world with a smile, Roxas was serious and more closed off. He wandered over to the group, glancing at Namine and Axel before turning towards Sora with a brief look.

“Roxas! Good work today!”

“Thanks…uh, who are they?”

“Oh, right! This is Namine and Axel, they’re my friends from school. This is Roxas, my brother.”

Namine’s heart leapt briefly at the mention of her and Sora being friends but there was this new niggling voice that made her wonder if she really wanted that now. She nodded, but was still having trouble finding her voice. Axel, on the other hand, had no problems.

“Nice to meet you,” He said, and he and Roxas shook hands. Then there was a pause, that grew into an awkward silence before Roxas finally asked the question.

“Why are you here?” 

Axel looked sheepish. Namine’s gaze shifted to the floor and stayed there.

“Well, we came to see Sora work. And then ended up seeing you work,” Axel replied and Roxas shot a look at Sora. Sora threw up his hands apologetically.

“I didn’t invite them. I didn’t even know they were coming.” 

Axel nodded his agreement. “Some of the guys who work here, like Demyx, are friends of mine. If we should blame anyone, it’s him.”

Roxas sighed. It looked as though blaming Demyx was something he wasn’t necessarily opposed to. He gave Sora another look before glancing back to Axel and Namine.

“Well, I think it’s kind of clear that you both need to keep this quiet. Don’t go, posting about it on the internet or anything. Please.”

It was the “please” that got Namine to look up. It didn’t sound so much like a demand, more like he was asking them. Almost pleading, or was that just her imagination? Regardless, he looked sincere. Roxas really didn’t want this information getting out and as confused as she was about the whole scenario, Namine felt like she should at least honor that. She nodded.

“Don’t worry,” she said finally. “We won’t say anything.” 

“You can count on us for that, at least,” Axel nodded. Roxas looked slightly more relieved. He looked like he was about to say more before Demyx burst out of the studio with forms to sign and to talk to Roxas and Sora about scheduling. There wasn’t much time for a follow up conversation.

**

The ride home was silent until they reached Namine’s door. Namine said good night and was about to head in before Axel grabbed her arm.

“Hey. Look. I’m sorry about what happened at the studio. All that stuff with Sora and Roxas was a surprise to me to. I wasn’t trying to ruin your dreams, or anything like that.”

It was rare that Axel sounded so sincere, and Namine was somewhat taken aback by it. But eventually she nodded.

“I know Axel. I still appreciate it. I just feel like I have a lot to think about.”

“Just say the word, and I’ll find a way to get Sora to talk to you. Alone.” 

“I think I’ll be alright.” Though she did want to talk to him again. A better conversation, one she could approach with a clearer mind and more of a direction. “Good night, Axel.”

“’Night Namine.” 

He drove off once she got to her door. She didn’t really say much, just that she was going to bed. But instead of sleeping, she stayed up drawing. It was the best way she knew to get her feelings out, and maybe she’d be able to come to an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this fic! This was a silly little AU idea that came to me while I was reading Voice Over! Seiyu Academy by Maki Minami, and sometimes, silly little AU ideas need to be written. 
> 
> I haven't listed any pairings, mostly because I haven't completely decided on where I'm going in that direction, but I have ideas and the tags will be updated to reflect them as things become more concrete. This is my first Kingdom Hearts fic of this nature to be writing, so it's a bit of a brand new experience for me. But we'll see how it goes and hopefully I won't crash and burn too hard. 
> 
> Also, it'll probably become obvious, but I like coming up with fake shows and video games, so have fun guessing their inspirations, ha ha!
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Thank you for reading <3


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